


Of fantasy and magic

by 898700 (ghostwriter)



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Genre: Angst, Fairy Tales, Gen, Literary Allusions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-26
Updated: 2010-07-26
Packaged: 2017-10-10 19:58:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/103705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostwriter/pseuds/898700
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Magic beans are not magic at all, Leonardo knows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of fantasy and magic

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this ages ago, but hadn't posted it anywhere. It always surprises me how angsty my Ninja Turtles stuff is, so I guess this is a forewarning? Leonardo is a child here, I'm not sure of his age, but he's definitedly not a teenager yet. I'm posting the stories he refers to in the end note, so skip it if you don't want to know.

Magic beans are not magic at all, Leonardo knows. He once heard Donatello's longwinded speech about why they jump, and how everything came back to a logical explanation … one that Michelangelo never really paid attention to. It didn't matter, as it only took four days for their baby brother to lose all interest. Now the little red beans rest unmoving in Leonardo's palm as a freshly dug hole waits. Is late at night and he shouldn't be outside, but this deep in the sewer system he's unlikely to find trouble.

His father would say trouble could find them anywhere, no matter what.

The world he lives in, Leonardo realizes, is not that different from the fairy stories' ones; not the Disney versions, but their Grimm Brothers' counterparts, those with child-eating witches and kids getting other kids killed by their own father's hand. It is not strange, he tries to convince himself, when after a week of sleeping trouble his mind brings back the memory of a princess' similar difficulty with a pea --at least he thinks it was a pea,-- which makes him remember the abandoned magic beans now stored under his mat.

There's no moon glowing down the sewers, not on this level, at least. There's no artificial lighting either, so he fixes up a torch with the bits and scraps of debris lying around, a self-deprecating smile barely grazing his face. He should have taken a lamp from home, but it's a good thing he didn't, as it wouldn't have lend the same mood flickering flames and dancing shadows do. It makes him think of One Thousand and One Nights' tales, of tricky Djinns, of Rocs and husbands cutting their wives in pieces for an apple.

It makes him think of a blind Polyphemus blaming Nobody for his injury, of Cassandra's cursed gift and the desperation she should have felt at the uselessness of her warnings, of Fortunato's jester bells and _Nemo me impune lacessit_, of Henry and Edward fighting for control over a tortured body, of Lemuel's sadness at being expelled by the Houyhnhnms.

He lingers for an hour, two, long after the fire has died, sitting in a corner so nobody (_nothing_) walks on him while he waits. He leaves only when he has to, knowing he'll be barely in time to get into his room before Splinter starts his day. He doesn't flick another glance to the small mound of soil barely noticeable in the lifting darkness. He doesn't linger.

Jack can keep the singing harp, the golden-eggs hen, the pouch of heavy coins. Leo just wants to get rid of the giants.

**Author's Note:**

> Stories referenced: child-eating witches (_Hansel &amp; Gretel_), kids getting other kids killed by their own father (_Little Thumbling_), a princess' sleeping problems (_The Princess and the Pea_), tricky Djinns (_The Fisherman and the Jinni_), Rocs (_The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor_), husbands cutting their wives for an apple (_The Three Apples_), Polyphemus blaming Nobody (Homer's _Odyssey_), Fortunato's jester bells (_The Cask of Amontillado_), Henry and Edward fighting over a tortured body (_Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_), Lemuel and the Houyhnhnms (_Gulliver's Travels_), Jack and the Giants (_Jack and the Beanstalk_).


End file.
